4 ms·

Huge if true. Most fission plants throw away about two-thirds of their energy output as waste heat (according to: https://www.answers.com/Q/How_much_of_the_hea

Huge if true. Most fission plants throw away about two-thirds of their energy output as waste heat (according to: https://www.answers.com/Q/How_much_of_the_heat_generated_in_a_nuclear_power_plant_is_waste_heat https://www.answers.com/Q/How_much_of_the_heat_generated_in_...), and their cooling towers are so much bigger than the reactor itself that they've become a symbol of the plants as a whole.

graycat 7y ago
Sorry to get away from some really nice physics and suggestion of some really good news for some of relevant reality: The cooling towers? The photographs in the news commonly show huge clouds of water vapor escaping from the tops of the towers with a picture caption about "nuclear" power or some such. So, the suggestion is that nuke plants generate huge clouds of dangerous radioactive byproducts. Such news content is easy: (1) Suggest that the cooling towers are the nuclear reactors and (2) don't mention that what is coming out is just water vapor, from water recently in some river or lake. Now the news people have their audience by their eyeballs for ad revenue and/or politics as in https://www.peakprosperity.com/2019-year-in-review-part-1/#climate https://www.peakprosperity.com/2019-year-in-review-part-1/#c... “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” ~ H.L. Mencken
- philipkglass 7y ago
  Nuclear plant operators show the steaming cooling towers on their own web sites: https://www.exeloncorp.com/locations/power-plants/limerick-generating-station https://www.exeloncorp.com/locations/power-plants/limerick-g... The same imagery shows up on the covers of nuclear textbooks: https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Engineering-Handbook-Mechanical-Aerospace/dp/1482215926 https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Engineering-Handbook-Mechanic... If anything, laypeople think that radiation is scary because it's invisible, tasteless, and odorless.
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    Laypeople think radiation is scary because they don't understand it and the nuclear industry lies reflexively.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

graycat 7y ago

Sorry to get away from some really nice physics and suggestion of some really good news for some of relevant reality: The cooling towers? The photographs in the news commonly show huge clouds of water vapor escaping from the tops of the towers with a picture caption about "nuclear" power or some such. So, the suggestion is that nuke plants generate huge clouds of dangerous radioactive byproducts. Such news content is easy: (1) Suggest that the cooling towers are the nuclear reactors and (2) don't mention that what is coming out is just water vapor, from water recently in some river or lake. Now the news people have their audience by their eyeballs for ad revenue and/or politics as in https://www.peakprosperity.com/2019-year-in-review-part-1/#climate https://www.peakprosperity.com/2019-year-in-review-part-1/#c... “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” ~ H.L. Mencken

philipkglass 7y ago
Nuclear plant operators show the steaming cooling towers on their own web sites: https://www.exeloncorp.com/locations/power-plants/limerick-generating-station https://www.exeloncorp.com/locations/power-plants/limerick-g... The same imagery shows up on the covers of nuclear textbooks: https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Engineering-Handbook-Mechanical-Aerospace/dp/1482215926 https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Engineering-Handbook-Mechanic... If anything, laypeople think that radiation is scary because it's invisible, tasteless, and odorless.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  Laypeople think radiation is scary because they don't understand it and the nuclear industry lies reflexively.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]